EFF

Most businesses are closed the day before Peru’s Independence Day so it’s a good time to issue a decree that you’d rather people not scrutinize. Except what’s becoming known as “The Stalker Law” is getting plenty of attention.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Katitza Rodriguez wrote that it provides the cops with “detailed footprints of our daily lives.” Most people don’t realize how much data their cellphones collect about them minute by minute. And even if they disable ¨location services¨ on their cellphone, they can´t turn off location tracking. It’s build into the wireless network.

Rodriguez says the surprise decree follows a global pattern of governments encroaching on their citizens’ digital privacy with limited debate.

The government, observed Miguel Morachimo, director of the Peruvian digital rights NGO Hiperderecho, tried to accomplish something similar three years ago in legislation that failed. Now it has achieved what it could not democratically: “To bypass all Peruvians’ right to privacy.” He’s thrown down the gauntlet in this post (Sp.).

Another digital rights legal expert, Erick Iriarte, considered the decree not very well thought out (Sp.). It lets judges retroactively declare inadmissible the geotracking information, which includes who you talked to, where you were, physically, the time and duration of the call. But what happens to the information collected. Can Peru’s police be trusted with it?

President Humala, his Cabinet chief and the ministers of interior and justice signed the decree. No debate in Congress. The same day, a different decree was issued creating the crime of ¨murder-for-hire” in Peru’s legal code.

Humala enters his last year in office as very much the lame duck and with crime worsening. His approval rating in last weekend’s GfK poll was 15 percent.